Sunday, September 23, 2012

Another one bites the dust

A MOMENT’S
silence, please, while we mourn the loss of yet another good word.

“Majority” means
the greater number, as in: “A majority of MPs voted in favour”, or “the
majority of New Zealanders support retention of the monarchy”.

It is specifically
related to numbers. Yet increasingly, we hear and read such solecisms as “the
sun shone for the majority of the day” or “the majority of the work was done by
nightfall”.

Does it matter?
Yes, because the English language depends on precision. Our laws rely on it,
because interpretation of the law hinges on the words used. We rely on it to
hold our politicians accountable, since we judge them by the statements they
make. The moment meanings become blurred, the language is robbed of clarity.

Then again, if you
define the world by the latest exploits of Jaime Ridge or who proceeds into the
finals of New Zealand’s Got Talent,
the degradation of English is probably of no consequence whatsoever. Why worry?

* * *

TIME WAS when a
test match between the All Blacks and the Springboks was a veritable Clash of
the Titans – an encounter eagerly anticipated by rugby fans in both countries.

But they were the
days when tests between the two countries were rare occasions, occurring at
intervals of several years. The infrequency served only to heighten the tension
and excitement when the two sides came together. Fans would sleep overnight on
the footpath to ensure they got tickets.

It’s hard to
imagine anyone bothering to make that sort of sacrifice today. Test matches are
now so common that even rugby journalists struggle to maintain the pretence
that they are anything special.

Responsibility for
the degrading of test rugby can be laid at the feet of rugby’s greedy corporate
masters, who insist on wringing every last dollar from the sport. Perhaps they
haven’t heard of Aesop’s fable about the goose that laid the golden egg.

* * *

MY FELLOW
columnist Terry Hall drew attention this week to the fact that the private
hospital group previously known as Wakefield Health has a new name: Acurity.

What is this
pretentious, made-up name supposed to represent? Your guess is as good as mine.
What was wrong with the old one? Nothing, as far as we can tell. Wakefield was
a name with strong historical associations, but Acurity means nothing.

The fashion for gimmicky
corporate names began in the 1980s when the Bank of New South Wales and the
Commercial Bank of Australia merged to form Westpac, which sounded for all the
world like a meat processing company.

Later in the
decade, the L D Nathan Group launched the retail chain DEKA, a name with all
the poetic resonance of an acronym for a Soviet tractor factory. Several stores
formerly owned by James Smith, a company name regarded with great affection by
generations of Wellingtonians, were among those that suffered the indignity of
being rebranded.

Since then the
trend has gathered momentum. National Mutual became AXA, Broadcast
Communications Ltd became Kordia (derived, we’re told, from “accordia”, meaning
“harmony”) and Norwich Union became Aviva (a pleasant name that also happens to
be the name of my daughter-in-law, but what’s it got to do with insurance?).

According to its
website, the former Wakefield Health changed its name to Acurity “to better reflect its own unique identity as owner of three
private surgical hospitals and its investment in other health related
organisations across the country”.

Which would
be all very well if there were such a word as acurity, but there isn’t. We are
left to conclude the board of Wakefield Health was smart-talked into the name
change by a clever advertising agency or PR firm, which no doubt trousered a
handsome fee for its trouble.

* * *

CLINT EASTWOOD was
rightly lampooned for his bizarre speech at the Republican presidential
convention.

There’s a lesson
here. Unless they’re prepared to put themselves on the line by actually
standing for office, as Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger did, actors and
other celebrities should stay well away from politics.

It’s a misuse of
power for people to exploit their popularity as actors, writers, artists or musicians
in order to exert political influence over impressionable fans. Eastwood is no
more qualified to comment on politics than hairdressers and cab drivers.

We are not immune
to the Eastwood syndrome here in New Zealand, although our own celebrities
invariably line up in support of the Left. An example is the “We’re better than
that” campaign currently running against a government bill aimed at deterring
people smugglers from bringing their human cargoes to New Zealand.

This has attracted
the support of such luminaries as Dave Dobbyn, Michele A’Court, Jeremy Elwood
and Oscar Kightley, who seem not to grasp that discouraging asylum seekers is actually
a humanitarian act, given the number who have drowned trying to get to
Australia.

2 comments:

In regards to rebranding with silly names, the worst examples of this are charities, who more than any other organisation depend on the trustworthiness of their brand to encourage donations. Yet they all seem to have rebranded in recent years. Each Friday I see these new brands on the collection buckets of volunteers on Lambton Quay and, because the brand means nothing to me, they get nothing from me.

In regards to Clint Eastwood's speech, did you actually watch it or are you just parrotting the prevailing left-wing media's dismissal of it? I thought he was perfectly lucid and that he had something very important to say - the core principle on which the American republic was founded - that the government works for the people, not the other way around. If only Mit Romney would be so bold.

About Me

I am a freelance journalist and columnist living in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand. In the presence of Greenies I like to boast that I walk to work each day - I've paced it out and it's about 15 metres. I write about all sorts of stuff: politics, the media, music, wine, films, cycling and anything else that piques my interest - even sport, though I admit I don't have the intuitive understanding of sport that most New Zealand males absorb as if by osmosis. I'm a former musician (bass and guitar) with a lifelong love of music that led me to write my book 'A Road Tour of American Song Titles: From Mendocino to Memphis', published by Bateman NZ in July 2016. I've been in journalism for more than 40 years and like many journalists I know a little bit about a lot of things and probably not enough about anything. I have never won any journalism awards.